by Susan Faw
“What were you doing there, Cayden?” She poked at his pocket. “Carving another flute?”
“Shh!” Cayden put a finger to his lips, hushing her question, with an involuntary glance at the suspect shrubbery. He strode to the area that had caught his eye and searched the underbrush for telltale signs of a human presence but found no evidence of anyone having stood there.
Cayden walked back to the ancient oak tree, Avery trailing in his wake. Kneeling at the base Cayden pulled back the pile of oak leaves nestled in the crook between two large surface roots, exposing a small, hollow crevice under the tree. He reached inside and pulled out a deerskin bag, loosening the drawstring. Inside were ten carved flutes.
So the strangers were not here for my flutes, he mused.
Cayden tightened the drawstrings and slid the bag back into the hollow at the base of the tree, deep in the crevice. He replaced the leaves in and over the hole, obscuring it from view and then erased his tracks by covering them with more fallen leaves. He studied his handiwork for a moment and satisfied that their hiding place was perfectly concealed, he perched on his favourite outcropping of rock in the pasture once again.
Avery watched her brother’s actions, a bemused expression playing across her features. She followed him to the rock and climbed up beside him, flopping down on her stomach on its warm smooth surface.
“What do you plan to do with all those flutes?” she asked, chin propped in her hand, watching him work with the slim stick of wood.
Cayden didn’t answer. The truth was that he didn’t know why he carved them. Avery was the only person who knew they existed. Magic in any form was banned, and his flutes would be perceived as magical. Of that he had no doubt. Avery was the only person who knew of his magic, and he knew she also harbored similar magical talents, although hers were more easily hidden.
The warm late day sun made the slab of granite a very pleasant perch for watching the sheep. His bow rested against the base of the rock, a quiver of arrows within easy reach.
Taking out his partially completed flute, Cayden examined it again. A bubble of excitement welled up inside him. He had been working on this flute for the last three days and it was near completion. Each one he had made was slightly different than the one before. Some were longer, some shorter, some fatter, some thinner, some slightly curved. All were decorated with spirals or lines carved into the surface.
He was not sure why he decorated them so, other than it seemed to change the sound and pitch of the tones produced. And the end result? It was completely unpredictable.
Cayden studied the flute in his hands and inspiration struck. Picking up the awl, he deftly carved sinuous lines lengthwise along the shaft of the flute. At the base, he carved his signature mark, a towering oak tree. He always carved in sight of the tree. It seemed magical to him. It gave him the wood to carve and so he wished for it to witness the creation he made with its gift. The oak tree limbs swayed slightly in silent acknowledgement. It was not the first time they had done so.
“Cayden? Do you think it’s true, what they say about the war?” Avery’s question broke through his concentration.
Cayden grunted and glanced quickly at her before returning his attention to the flute. “What are they saying? I have heard so many different rumours that it’s difficult to know what to believe.”
“Well do you believe that the Primordials are invading?” Avery frowned at him. “The queen’s criers are saying that the Primordial clans plan to come across the Highland Needle and raid the farms. They say that travellers are being snatched and are never seen again. They say that strange creatures have been spotted, dark monsters that suck the soul from people. They say that the Primordials are cursing the sheep that graze closest to the pass, and lambs are being born with two heads. Two heads! How strange is that?” Her words tumbled to a halt.
Cayden snorted. “Do you really think any creature can survive with two heads? It sounds like stories made for telling around a solstice fire.”
Avery frowned at Cayden’s response. “Well it can’t all be stories. What about the McKinnons? They had that two-headed calf born last spring, remember? It actually lived for a few days.”
Cayden grimaced and nodded. Curious, he had gone to see it, before it died. He had snuck into the barn just before dark and there it was, in the stall beside the cow which had given birth to it, complete with two heads, one larger than the other. The heads had competed with each other to nurse first and within a few days it had starved itself to death. He shivered involuntarily; the memory was creepy.
“They burned the calf body,” Cayden said, picking up the story, “and the McKinnons moved away. The queen’s guards were going to arrest them for witchcraft, Pa said so.”
It was Avery’s turn to nod. “Cayden, I am afraid of anyone learning of our magic.” She fidgeted with a few stalks of tall grass as she spoke, braiding them together. “We must be very careful, with the legions on the move.”
“They wouldn’t want us! We are shepherds. I don’t think they even know where Sanctuary-by-the-Sea is located.” He waved the flute in her direction. “Here, take a look at this one.”
Avery scooted over the rock to his side and peered over his shoulder at the flute in his hands. Pleased with the result, Cayden took a soft cloth and a small container of linseed oil from his pocket. He opened the lid and dipped a folded corner of cloth into the pot, then wiped it onto the flute, working the oil into the raw wood surface. It glowed as the oil was absorbed into the body.
He put the lid back on the container then stowed both the cloth and the pot of oil back in his pocket. His eyes searched the field one more time checking that they were alone, and then he placed the flute to his lips.
A hauntingly soft but reedy sound came from the flute. He tried a couple of other notes, up and down the pipe. Settling his back against the rock outcropping, he played the tune that had been bouncing around in his brain, eyes wandering lazily over to an ewe and newborn lamb, cropping the short grasses a foot or two away. His eyes drifted closed while he played, listening to the tone of the flute. The melody lingered in the air when he finished.
He opened his eyes to find snakes crawling out of rocky dens where they had been hibernating. They crawled toward them and gathered beside him on the rock, seemingly bewitched by the sounds coming from the flute.
He was not surprised, and neither was Avery. Strange things happened around Cayden’s flutes, usually involving some creature or another. The only surprise left was what kind of animal the flutes would summon.
He continued to play and the snakes swayed in time to the music. Cayden counted fifty snakes around him of every type known in the area from poisonous black adders to common garden snakes. None showed any aggression toward him at all.
He stopped playing and the snakes slithered up beside him, coiling on the rocks. Their gentle hisses were not words, but he grasped their meaning. He sensed they meant him no harm. His talent was sufficiently strange that to outsiders, especially those who rigidly followed the queen’s edicts, it would appear that magic or witchcraft was being practiced. Cayden agreed; the way the music of the flutes attracted creatures to him did seem magical. Magic had been outlawed as long as he had been alive and the queen sent regular patrols to scour the kingdom for signs of its use.
The older men of the village, however, loved to recount tall tales of a time when magic permeated every corner of the world, of the Old Gods and Goddesses, of a time when magic ruled supreme; a time before the Falling; a time before the War of the Gods. It was all very thrilling, the orators’ voices rising and waning, the spooky quality heightened by the flickering light of the roaring bonfire, which marked the close of the festival to welcome spring.
The flute he had carved last week had summoned several packs of wolves, the appearance of which panicked the sheep causing them to bolt away, bleating their terror and scattering into the trees. The wolves paid the sheep no attention at all, instead coming to sit right at t
he base of the rock, their heads cocked to one side listening, expressions of extreme intelligence on their faces. Tongues lolling out of their mouths, they had stayed until Cayden had stopped playing and then slowly faded back into the trees.
Cayden had spent two extra hours gathering up all the sheep, which, of course, had made him late for dinner that day. The lie that he had fallen asleep in the warm sun did not convince his father, earning him a stern lecture and extra chores.
Even stranger still, after each of these encounters with the animals called by the flutes, Cayden felt a bond with them, as though an echo of the song still played in his head. They became a large extended family that never left his side, yet no one ever saw.
Scooping up ten garden snakes, Cayden placed them in the pouch at his waist. They writhed and wiggled and squirmed in the bag.
“Come on, Avery. We need to get back to the farm. Father will be waiting for this flock to come in. The faster we finish dousing the sheep, the sooner we can head into town and check out the festival.”
Avery slid off the rock and whistled for the sheep. “I can’t wait to check out the decorations. Let’s hurry!” She ran off into the pasture, gathered the sheep into a loose bunch and began herding them toward the lane. Grinning, Cayden whistled to gather the few stragglers and headed for home. He had a plan for these snakes.
Chapter 2
AVERY TIERNAN TOOK A DEEP BREATH. She sat cross-legged on the ground out back of the chicken coop, eyes closed, hands resting on her knees, palms up. Exhaling slowly, she let every part of her body relax.
She drew another deep breath, this time holding it until it seemed her lungs would burst with the need to exhale. Spots floated before her eyes, but her senses sharpened and she focused on those smells that came in the deepest of relaxed states.
It made no sense to her, how she could smell so acutely when she wasn’t breathing at all, but somehow she knew it wasn’t an actual smell she smelled. It was more like an impression of a smell, a memory of a smell. Often it wasn’t even a scent she had ever smelled before.
She had discovered this ability quite by accident one day. About six months ago, she had taken a fall from her horse (of course, it was the horse’s fault; she had been perfectly balanced standing on the back of the horse!) and landed quite painfully on her back, knocking the air from her lungs in a great whoosh. She lay there for several seconds, gasping for a breath that wouldn’t come. Like an overturned turtle, she’d lain there, staring at the canopy overhead. Verdant leaves vibrated with every colour and hue, and the rarified air trembled and danced in her vision.
She smelled the scent of an earthworm, wriggling on the soil of the overturned rock that had caused the horse to stumble in the first place. But even more impressive to her, she could sense her horse’s surprise and waning fear of falling. Avery watched as her horse, Sunny, wandered back to nudge her with her nose, snorting. She understood Sunny’s thoughts simply from the horse’s smell…or what she called a smell.
Sitting up slowly, Avery had patted her mare’s nose in comfort.
The smell today was nothing she had ever smelled before. It was the sweet aroma of a wildflower that grew only in the sacred lands to the north of the mountain ranges in the land of the Primordial. How she knew this she did not understand, but she knew it to be true.
She sensed the land knew it too; the trees whispered of the flower and its powers to heal and to soothe. Avery thought the flower had the ability to heal mortal wounds if administered in time.
She shook her head at her crazy thoughts. She knew she was right, though. She would be branded a lunatic and a heretic if she were ever to speak those words out loud. By the queen’s decree, she would be declared a witch and the queen would certainly have her burned at the stake were she to even voice the thought. So she kept her dawning abilities to herself and practiced when she had quiet moments alone.
A twig snapped.
Avery’s eyes flew open. With her enhanced senses humming, she pinpointed the location, and spied two figures standing about one hundred paces away. They froze and then melted back into the trees and were lost from view.
***
Ziona allowed the branches of the dogwood to relax back to their natural position, cutting off her view of the curly haired young woman. Sharisha continued to watch her, a slight frown creasing her brow.
“Did you see an aura around her while she was meditating? It pulsed like a living thing! I have never seen such strength of spirit before. She was glowing blue as a midsummer’s sky! Look, it’s pulsing from her in waves. She is the one, Sharisha, I know she is!”
Sharisha studied Avery, as Ziona walked deeper into the trees. “It is one of the signs. The boy, her brother, must be the other one, even though we did not witness his spirit yesterday.” Sharisha silently withdrew from her place of concealment and allowed a rare smile to soften the rigid set of her lips as she caught up to her companion. “We need to keep a close watch on the pair of them.”
“So now we split up.” Ziona matched her strides to Sharisha’s. “I will keep watch over the boy and you can aid the girl as we planned.”
“You must not interfere with the boy, Ziona.” Sharisha frowned at the younger woman. Ziona bounced along at her side, her excitement evidenced by the way she thrust a low-hanging branch to the side. “He must come to know his powers on his own. We cannot interfere in his trials.”
“I know we cannot interfere, unless it is a life-threatening situation.” Ziona shrugged her shoulders. “But it doesn’t mean I can’t talk to him. He will never know who I am or what I do until it is necessary.”
“Remember, Ziona.” Sharisha gripped Ziona’s arm, halting her in mid stride. “The prophecies of the Elder Scrolls make it very clear that the Goddess will give aid when the time is right. They must come to know the strength of their magic by their own hand, not ours.”
“Yes, yes. I understand the plan.” Frustrated, Ziona changed the topic slightly. “She saw us. Her eyes are much sharper than the boy’s.”
“Perhaps.”
They arrived at their camp, tucked under a slab of granite fallen millennia ago from the mountain soaring above their heads. The edges were worn smooth with time and a perfect cave had formed that protected any inhabitants sheltering there from the weather on three sides. A crack in the rock provided a natural chimney through which the smoke of their campfire escaped.
They kept their fire small, using some thin sticks and a nest of last year’s grasses as kindling. A meal of dried berries, nuts, and flatbread was washed down with spring water from a waterskin.
Dinner complete, Ziona picked up a brush and braided Sharisha’s waist-length hair, winding it around her head to cover the tips of her pointed ears and then secured it with wooden carved combs from their packs. Sharisha did the same for Ziona.
Next, they focused on their faces. Human faces often had slanted eyes, but not the sharp angular eyebrows of their heritage. Picking up a knife from their meal kit, Sharisha carefully shaped Ziona’s brows to a more human curve.
Finally, they took out clothing they had purchased a few villages back and changed into the style of clothing appropriate to a good wife or a merchant of the area. Skirts of woven wools (green for Ziona and brown for Sharisha) topped with white blouses of good cotton and cloaks of wool. Sturdy walking shoes completed the ensembles.
They unfolded their bedrolls and crawled under the coverings. Humming a Primordial melody of rest, they drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 3
ALCINA CURSETAG ENTERED THE GRAND HALL, ignoring the ripples of movement from her personal attendants as she marched across the tiled expanse to the balcony doors at the far end of the room. Heads bobbed on the men and women curtsied low, but for Alcina they might as well not have existed. Her elite guard trailed along in her wake, trotting to keep up with her long strides. She pushed open the heavy glass doors and stepped out onto the stone balustrade, which overlooked the ceremonial parade grounds below.
It was swollen with rank upon rank of soldiers, jammed shoulder to shoulder between the stone walls of the compound. All stood rigidly at attention, even though the hour was early and the wait had been a long one. They stamped feet in an attempt to keep the cold from seeping into their boots.
Their captains, lords of the land all, restlessly shifted position, having been roused from warm beds and stoked fires out into the crisp morning air. Puffs of frozen breath drifted above the assembled men.
The queen’s legions were made up of men recruited from across the kingdom. The original guard of Cathair had contained fifteen hundred men. That number had now swollen to close to ten thousand—some barely old enough to shave and then only once a week—due to the queen’s decree commanding the conscription of able-bodied youths sixteen years of age and older.
Alcina surveyed the assembled men, her expression haughty and cold.
A young man, a youth really, near the front of the line of men caught sight of her and nudged the soldier next to him. Both straightened their postures, eager to impress the regal woman above them.
“These would be new recruits,” said Alcina to the lord general of her personal guard standing at her shoulder. She gestured toward the young men with a flick of her hand. “So fresh and eager to see battle. Well, I should not disappoint them, I think. Wouldn’t you agree, Cyrus?”
Cyrus clasped his hands behind his back and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, speculation on his face. “What did you have in mind, my queen? The eastern campaign?” he rumbled in his deep-timbral voice.
“All those peasants have been escaping their duty for far too long, hiding on their little farms in the hills by the sea. You may send a small contingent to the area. But I have better plans for these troops. How many legions have you called here today?”
“The First and Third Footmen and the Sixth Cavalry Elite, my queen. They are a full five thousand strong. While there are many new recruits amongst the regular soldiers, these are mostly volunteers and not the usual scum we find with the conscription services. Their commanders are the best we have in the field.”
